Seberg

This review may contain spoilers!

Far from the most arresting civil rights film I've seen, this is still a feature with an ensemble cast that deliver a powerful collective performance. I would give Seberg a 6.5/10.

Seberg is a biopic focusing on Jean Seberg, a French New Wave actress who became involved with the Black Panther group and, in doing so, became the victim of an FBI smear campaign against her. This film is most interesting when it focuses upon how the FBI infiltrated Seberg's life, intentionally causing scandal to humiliate and ultimately ruin her reputation. There is this brilliant sense of mounting paranoia as you see the lengths the FBI is willing to go to keep Seberg under surveillance, contrasted really well by the mania and anxiety Seberg becomes consumed by as she continues to be harassed. It's a perverse story to the backdrop of the civil rights movement that is certainly intriguing. I also found it really noteworthy how this film took a stance on fighting against discrimination through education, it really laid its argument out well through the narrative. The score for this film is a beautiful sombre piece that conducts the audience through the passage of Seberg's downward spiral, a very neat piece of music that I didn't expect from this film.

Kristen Stewart, who played Jean Seberg, really found one of her best roles yet in this features title role; Stewart had this confident streak that really gotten shaken and broken down throughout the feature. Yvan Attal, who played Romain Gary, was really interesting as the quietly supportive separated partner; Attal's had a mild manner towards scenes where his role grew upset that I thought was unique and showed calculating restraint. Margaret Qualley, who played Linette Solomon, really pushed O'Connell and unearthed the conflict in their shared storyline; Qualley really highlighted some of the issues a progressive women seeking education had to face in the 60s as well. Colm Meaney, who played Frank Ellroy, was a no nonsense stoic leader in the FBI; Meaney was very dispassionate and showed no remorse in creating antagonism for the title role. Vince Vaughn, who played Carl Kowalski, was a veteran FBI agent who served as a strong antagonist for the film; his disregard for decency and abusive manner towards his family created an oppressive presence throughout. Zazie Beetz, who played Dorothy Jamal, showed genuine passion towards a lot of the films messages around fighting for the future through education; Beetz also really seized onto the conflict between her and Stewart which lead to some of my favourite scenes in the film.

However. the best performance came from Anthony Mackie, who played Hakim Jamal. I think you can see the quiet passion Mackie puts into each and every role he portrays in this character, there is a steady resilience here that is present throughout. When first we are introduced to Mackie you get the bold stance against inequality towards black people and see him as a stoic, firm leader for the Black Panther group. Yet as the film carries on you don't fail to notice just how intelligent this man is, quietly conducting arguments about how to successfully fight your rights for future generations. The character is part of a spontaneous affair with Stewart's Seberg and the pair play off one another quite well, Mackie has a more playful chemistry in these scenes that enhances the relationship. This role was certainly one of the more engaging characters to watch.

While I found significant aspects of Seberg intriguing I think the film suffered overall from major pacing issues, quite simply because there just wasn't that much story to tell.Between the major scenes and plot points of the film there were a number of empty scenes that failed to achieve anything, or empty aesthetic sequences that added nothing at all to the film. The film never truly made a strong push for why the story mattered, it gave a very simple presentation of the events and then cut to black. My biggest problem with the film was some of the more dramatic tailoring of the events; adding the FBI agent with a redeeming side to him was a bit much. I thought the scene in which he interacts with Jane Seberg at the end of the film was particularly bad, it felt so far removed from reality that I was entirely drawn out of the narrative. The cinematography for the film really had a lack of vision to it, there were so many shots that felt bland or predictable. The editing for the feature didn't fair much better, it pushed the film towards a slower pace that really dragged things out. The soundtrack for Seberg wasn't the most inspired collection of songs, the tracks felt a little niche and never added a lot to the scenes they were used in.

Jack O'Connell, who played Jack Solomon, was quite disappointing as the lead for the FBI storyline; it often felt like O'Connell never found the true nature of his role and so wound up playing things quite inconsistently. Stephen Root, who played Walt Breckman, is a bit of an attaché to Stewart's scenes but never displays much screen presence; Root has a very mild presence and doesn't find anything engaging in his role to present.